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A bobcat travels through a concrete culvert that runs beneath Highway 101. A culvert like this is too small to function as an effective crossing for deer and mountain lions. (Coyote Valley Bobcat Study)

A bobcat captured to be fitted with a tracking collar as part of the Coyote Valley Bobcat Study, a collaboration between the Peninsula Open Space Trust, the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, the Wilmers Lab at UC Santa Cruz and Pathways for Wildlife to better understand wildlife movement and behavior in Coyote Valley. (Courtesy of Laurel Serieys)

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Chris Wilmers and Laurel Serieys of UC Santa Cruz along with Tanya Diamond and Ahiga Snyder of Pathways for Wildlife (left to right) outfit a captured bobcat with a radio tracking collar to better understand how and where animals are traveling across the Coyote Valley. (Courtesy of Laurel Serieys)

Wildlife technicians carry a captured bobcat to get fitted with a radio tracking collar as part of the Coyote Valley Bobcat Study, a collaboration between the Peninsula Open Space Trust, the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, the Wilmers Lab at UC Santa Cruz and Pathways for Wildlife to better understand wildlife movement and behavior in Coyote Valley. (Courtesy of Galli Basson)

High-speed rail may end up connecting northern and southern California like never before, but biologists are worried it could cause the local extinction of mountain lions and other wildlife in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Current plans route the high-speed trains, travelling faster than 200 mph, through Coyote Valley, a hotly contested corridor of open space and bucolic farmland between San Jose and Gilroy.

The valley connects more than 1,500 square miles of wildlife habitat spread between the Santa Cruz Mountains to the west and the Diablo Range to the east. That includes 714 square miles of land that has already been protected from development, representing an estimated $3.5 billion of conservation investment, according to a 2017 report from the Santa Clara Open Space Authority.

“The importance of the Coyote Valley is more than the species that live in it, it’s the species that need to be able to move through it to maintain healthy populations on either side,” said Chris Wilmers, an ecologist at UC Santa Cruz.

But if the high-speed rail line is constructed without tunnels, bridges or other corridors to ensure wildlife can move through the landscape unimpeded, experts say, the Santa Cruz Mountains would become an island– fenced in by the ocean to the west and by human development to the north, east and south. For the mountain lions, badgers, bobcats and other animals of the Santa Cruz Mountains, island life could be disastrous.

“Cousins start breeding with cousins, brothers start breeding with sisters and eventually you have this spiral of inbreeding that can cause species to go extinct,” said Wilmers.

Right now, animals are making it work, despite two existing north-south barriers to crossing Coyote Valley from one mountain range to the other: Monterey Highway and Highway 101. Despite high speeds and constant traffic, Highway 101 has several underpasses and culverts that biologists have documented being used by wildlife. Monterey Street, on the other hand, only has one culvert crossing at Coyote Creek.

“Animals are using that culvert, but more often they seem to be taking their chances crossing Monterey at grade– we see a lot of roadkill there as a result,” said Galli Basson a biologist with the Santa Clara Open Space Authority.

If high-speed rail is willing to make habitat connectivity a priority, it could even improve on the current situation for wildlife.

“A lot of people are hoping that high-speed rail is a positive opportunity to improve the situation. A large scale engineering project is an opportunity to bring collaborators and stakeholders together to pool ideas and resources,” said Nicole Heller, who until recently oversaw the Coyote Valley project for the Peninsula Open Space Trust, a Palo Alto environmental organization.

But that will cost money, and the $67 billion project, approved by voters in 2008, is currently under audit after running over budget and behind schedule.

Initially estimated to cost $33 billion, the cost jumped to $64 billion in 2016. A new business plan, to be released Friday, is expected to include another cost increase and extended timetables for the project’s completion.

A combination of state, federal, and private money was supposed to fund the massive project’s construction, but funding has been secured for only $13.5 billion of the its metastasizing price tag.

Despite this fiscal shortfall, concrete viaducts to nowhere have sprouted up in Fresno. This is part of a 119-mile segment through the Central Valley currently being constructed by 1,700 workers. The segment was selected to get built first because it was supposed to be the easiest section. But the state has met fervent opposition from local authorities and landowners as it attempted to purchase land, as well as a bevy of logistical hurdles navigating its path alongside, through, and around existing infrastructure.

The apparent push to further construction despite the project’s uncertain finances leads some to wonder if Gov. Jerry Brown is trying to tip the project past a point of no return that would oblige his successor to see it through.

Over the past year, High Speed Rail Authority officials have met with the Santa Clara Open Space Authority, the Peninsula Open Space Trust and others. High Speed Rail spokeswoman Lisa Marie Alley said a draft environmental impact report for the San Jose to Merced project section that Coyote Valley falls within is expected in October. When finalized, that document will specify what, if any, environmental mitigation strategies are under consideration.

“Our board of directors will ultimately make the choice, but our goal is to chart out an alignment that has as little negative impact as possible,” said Alley.

High-speed rail would either swoop through the Coyote Valley on an elevated viaduct or gouge into the dirt at grade in what is called an embankment. “If they do an embankment– they would construct solid walls on either side of the tracks that would prevent wildlife from getting through. A viaduct would be the best option from a wildlife perspective but we’ve been told it costs several billion dollars more,” said Matt Freeman, the assistant general manager at the Santa Clara Open Space Authority.

Environmentalists are hoping for the viaduct, which would allow animals to pass between its pillars, but planning for concrete walls of an embankment.

Since last May, Wilmers, who is director of the Santa Cruz Puma Project at UC Santa Cruz, has fitted radio collars on 24 bobcats in Coyote Valley. His goal is to map their soft-footed comings and goings to figure out where wildlife corridors should go. Creating paths for wildlife to get across the tracks would allow them to move freely between the Diablo Range and the Santa Cruz Mountains. Wilmers is working with the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority and a team of scientists to help generate data to support specific recommendations that they hope will inform how high-speed rail is ultimately built.

“When you build a tunnel you have to think about the requirements of different species. Is the tunnel big enough? Can animals see to the other side of it?” said Wilmers. Overpasses for the animals are more desirable, but also more expensive. They can be covered in vegetation and are preferred by larger animals like deer and mountain lions. Underpasses are often just culverts.

In 2017, the Santa Clara Open Space Authority hired civil engineers who estimated the costs of underpasses at between $1 and $2.5 million, and overpasses at between $10 and $25 million.

Highway 17 in Santa Cruz is being outfitted with a pair of tunnels for wildlife to increase habitat connectivity and reduce roadkill– a benefit to both critters and motorists.

“It’s a crisis opportunity.” said Freeman. “High-speed rail could be another nail in the coffin for Coyote Valley, but with so much funding and scrutiny the project could actually improve things.”

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